Suspect Arrested In 25-Year-Old Cold Case Murder Of Lisa Ziegert

For more than two decades, authorities in Massachusetts have been hunting for a killer who kidnapped a 24-year-old teacher’s aide in 1992, slit her throat, and left her body in a wooded area. On Monday, the Hampden County district attorney told reporters that police had finally arrested a suspect in the brutal murder of Lisa Ziegert.

Gary E. Schara, 48, confessed to the killing in writing, District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni said.

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Ziegert, a teacher’s aide at Agawam Middle School, was working a shift at her second job at Brittany Card and Gift Shop on the night of April 15, 1992, when she was kidnapped. She was reported missing to police the next morning by the store’s day clerk who arrived to find the store open with the lights on and Lisa’s car still parked where it had been the previous evening.

The money was still in the store register, and Lisa’s purse and school materials were also left behind, so robbery didn’t seem to be the motive.

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Her body was found on Easter Sunday in a wooded area off Route 75 in Agawam near the Connecticut border. She had suffered multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slit.

Over the years, the Agawam Police Department, Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit, Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory, and FBI have worked on the case — and Gulluni said Schara had been a person of interest since 1993.

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Taking advantage of advances in forensics, authorities were eventually able to develop a single-source male DNA profile from evidence taken from Lisa’s body. In August, they began a legal process to obtain DNA samples from a small number of people of interest in the case whose DNA profiles were not in any law-enforcement databases.

On September 13, police attempted to notify Schara about the process and serve him notice of a hearing. He was not at home, so police left the information with someone in the residence. The message must have spooked him, as 24 hours later an unidentified tipster whom authorities say is a relative of Schara gave investigators a confession allegedly written by him as well as a suicide note.

Detectives say they were also able to match Schara’s DNA to evidence recovered from the crime scene.

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He fled to Connecticut, where he was taken into custody at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford, seeking medical treatment after a suicide attempt, according the The Hartford Courant.

“We have arrested the person who is responsible for the heinous acts committed against Lisa, and the 25-year-long search for answers is over,” Gulluni said. Schara has been charged with murder, kidnapping, and aggravated rape.

Lisa’s mother, Dee Ziegert, told the press and public during the news conference that she feels “satisfaction” knowing the alleged assailant is behind bars — and that they can finally get justice for Lisa.

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The district attorney declined to discuss further details of the case, but told 22News that he did not believe that Ziegert and Schara knew each other. The investigation continues.

Read more:

Boston Globe 

Hartford Courant

Main photo: Gary Schara [Hampden District Attorney]

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